Going viral and doing things I said I'd never do again...

Sep 30, 2022

Happy Feast of Saint Jerome!

Did you know his tomb is in Rome at Saint Mary Major? There’s some debate on where in Saint Mary Major it’s located as it was moved and left unmarked because people kept trying to steal him. But it’s probably in the Sistine Chapel — the other Sistine Chapel.

Going viral.

It’s every creator’s dream. Produce a piece of content that viewers will want to consume, engage, and share.

It’s happened to me six times, and I can’t say I recommend it. Here are a few of those viral moments.

Closing Doors

My latest viral video is a door closing. That’s it.

I’ve made videos where I scripted everything, shot multiple takes from multiple angles, used professional lighting and audio, spent days editing, and was very pleased with the outcome. But a video I shot randomly one morning of a door closing is currently getting a million views a day on Facebook.

That’s great, right?

Sure, I’m grateful that people are watching and sharing, but with that many views, it has made Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, all unusable. For some reason, people see a video like that and want to text and call me. I don’t get it.

I am getting hundreds of messages a day on each platform. I’ve had notifications turned off for weeks.

These are not messages from people wanting a tour or hoping to set up a pilgrimage for their parish, it’s all people wanting to argue about the Church, asking for visas, wanting free trips, sponsorships and collaborations, mostly just straight up spam.

All over a door closing.

Blackout at the Vatican

This was my most expensive viral moment to date.

I still can’t believe how crazy this one got. According to some people, the US SWAT Team cut the power to the Vatican, landed a helicopter in the middle of Saint Peter’s Square, killed a bunch of cardinals, and then arrested the pope. When I looked out from my apartment terrace and said that the lights were on and there was no active gun fight, people flipped out and attacked me for weeks. When I walked over and did a live YouTube broadcast from a very calm and peaceful Saint Peter’s Square, people literally broke down shadows on the cobblestones and counted falling raindrops to show that I was actually using a green screen in a studio. It was insane. I had so many visitors to my website that I had to pay… well, let’s just say four figures, in traffic overages.

Here’s the article all about that fun week.

Pope Hat

Not all viral content results in negativity. If you are new here, you probably don’t know that this viral video from 2017 was shot by me of my goddaughter when I took her to meet the pope.

This was a fun day and I wrote an article about all the media excitement (CBS film crew at my apartment, middle of the night phone call from Jimmy Kimmel, shown on TMZ, etc) and lots of good Catholic publicity from this short clip.

You can read about that here.

Pope Hat Part Two

Another pope hat gone viral. This one got me banned for life on TikTok after it had over five million views in a day. Their reason was that my video had multiple violations of their community guidelines. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Oh well. I’m no longer on TikTok, but you can see the clip on Facebook where it has over 20 millions views. By the way, she’s saying “bucket hat.”

This weekend I’m doing something I said I would never do again. To find out what it is and why…

I’ll be live on YouTube tomorrow, October 1st, at 1 PM Eastern from another country to explain what it is — but you’ll have to wait a few days for the why. Subscribe, hit the bell, and I’ll see you tomorrow.